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On Wednesday 14th June 2017 G351 Fulham Pump ladder was ordered to attend an eight pump fire atGrenfell Tower. tam the Officer in charge of G351 Fulham Red Watch.

We had booked status 6 following attendance at an incident in Kensington. On receipt of the orderingto Grenfell Tower, I booked Status 2 but the incident did not load on to the MDT, so pinpointing thelocation was difficult.

We approached the incident from Latimer Road. The fire appeared to be sweeping around the middleof the building. I led my crew of four to the tower. We passed many fire fighters on the way in, Istopped to speak to the OIC of G27 and reassured him that assistance was on its way.

Before I went into the front entrance I took a moment to look at how the fire & smoke was behaving. Iinitially thought that the building may have solar panels, similar to the panels found on Stebbing andPointer house. I noticed that the fire appeared to be rapidly moving up the building and wrappingaround it, as if it was gasses alight rather than the building itself. I recall thinking how unusual it looked.

Pled my crew to the Bridgehead to ascertain what assistance we could offer. I wanted to get myself andmy crew committed as soon as possible. As we ascended the stairs to the mezzanine, we passed a lot ofFF's waiting to be committed. I told my crew to wait with the other FF's and I went to the Bridgehead tospeak to WM O'Brien (G33) & WM De SlIvo (G34). I spoke to the SM at the mezzanine and heinstructed me to go and assist another SM on the ground floor. I removed my BA set and gave it to a FFcarrying a second set bag.

I followed the SM on the ground floor, who led me back out of the tower. It was now apparent that thefire had taken hold of a large proportion of the building. The SM and I reported to DAC AndyOlochlan. He directed us back into the building to report to the GM at the Bridgehead.

At the Bridgehead GM Welch detailed me to take over receiving the Fire Survival Guidance forms andtransfer the information on to the foyer wall at the entrance to the building. My brief was to receive theforms, write it up on the wall prioritising the calls. I acknowledged my brief.

I instructed the FSG runner to bring all the forms directly to me. I instructed a CM to retrieve theinformation from the existing Forward Information Board at the bridgehead, which I transferred ontothe wall. While I was waiting for the runner, I assisted the SM at the entrance in delegating tasks. Theconditions outside at the entrance were rapidly deteriorating, large amounts of debris that was alightwas falling from height and landing at the entrance to the tower. It became unusable and the foyerbegun to have a number of casualties that could not get out the building. I instructed a FF to establishan opening on the left hand side of the building, where I did not believe the fire to have taken hold. Onthe FF's return I told her to seek the assistance of an FRU member to break an exit large enough toremove the casualties. The LAS were refusing to cross an imaginary line to offer assistance, the line wasunder the hard cover opposite the entrance to the tower, this left a number of casualties requiringassistance but who were unable to be removed.

The runner that I had briefed at the Bridgehead retumed, he had half a dozen forms from the (FSG)Command Support Unit (CSU). Since I was located on the ground floor foyer and the bridgehead wason the third floor, I realised that should we communicate the FSG information via hand held radio, withall the noise which was present at the time, we would be at serious risk of miscommunication.

To resolve this I suggested to a WM on the mezzanine level that I would receive the forms, log them onthe wall and then call up to him with the details, he would then confirm the information and write a"ticket" (a page from his small note book) and give the ticket to the Bridgehead WM, who in turn wouldtask the BA crew to carry the rescues at the specified floors.

By calling up to the WIV1 on the mezzanine level I was able to keep eye contact, provide the informationand confirm acknowledgement for each FSG. Once the ticket had been provided to the Bridgehead I

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could make a note next to the information on the wall identifying that a BA crew had been sent to thatFSG location.

This system appeared to be efficient, a large number of people were being rescued from the building.This presented its own challenge. A combination of panic, injury, exhaustion and language difficultiesmeant that it was very difficult to ascertain where people were being rescued from. I tried to source amarker pen in order that I could write on the casualties, identifying the floor they had been rescuedfrom, unfortunately I was unable to do so.

I began receiving a lot of FSG forms from several runners. To manage the recording process I tasked asmall group of FF's assisting the evacuation of casualties to ascertain the location the causalities hadbeen rescued from. I asked all the FF's waiting to be committed in BA to make a note of the location ofanyone they rescued. The WM writing the "tickets" reaffirmed this request.

During this time a lot of targeted rescues were taking place, crews were working well together andamongst all the chaos it felt like we had an effective system.

The Bridgehead was brought down to the ground floor. The two FF's on the Entry Control Boardsjoined me in the foyer, however, they were relocated to set up at the bottom of the stairs, which was onthe other half of the foyer. The Foyer was split by a glass wall, which was only accessible through asingle door opening.

Myself and the other WM assisting me were now both in the same area. We continued to operate thesystem but the Foyer had become heavily congested with FF's waiting to be committed and thecommunication of FSG information was not getting used in the same way as it had been. Theinformation that we were providing the bridgehead did not appear to be acted upon by the bridgeheadand the borough commanders. It felt as though the communication between myself as FSG and theBridgehead was breaking down.

I continued to log the FSG information whist speaking to both adults and children re the location oftheir rescue. It should be noted that there was often a communication issue between myself and thosepeople rescued. This was largely down to a language barrier and I often used the children to ascertainrelevant information. I was joined by a SM Wolfenden I explained what we had been doing and howwe had been communicating.

As time passed my role became considerably more challenging. The incident had deteriorated andcrews were exhausted so establishing the location the rescues has taken place was ineffective. I wastold by a SM (ORT) that FF's would not be committed above the 10th floor and that we were about toexperience significant loss. I found this difficult to digest, since people were self evacuating from aboveten floors. I articulated my dissatisfaction having been told this. He instructed me to continue logging allFSG for reporting purposes.

The FSG continued to come in from the runners and the number of rescues were reducing.In my opinion, I felt the passing of FSG information to the bridgehead was impeded since the seniorofficers running the bridgehead situated themselves behind a glass wall.

It felt like along time before a new plan was established, I am unsure of the time scales.

Myself and SM Wolfenden begun cross referencing the FSG information with the CSU, we did this viahanclheld radio. In a similar method, the CSU provided the number of people in each flat, on each floor.I logged this information on the wall, cross checked the numbers with rescues and both the other WMand SM Wolfenden provided the information to the Bridgehead.

I had to leave the incident unexpectedly since my This was recorded by the CSU.

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